1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to aircraft windshields and, more particularly, to defogging/deicing aircraft windshields.
2. Description of Related Art
Today's aircraft windshield defogging/deicing systems generally include a resistive coating deposited on an inner surface of one of a plurality of transparent layers, which are laminated and held together via transparent interlayers. Many of the resistive coatings in use today are optimally powered with DC electrical power that is available on the aircraft for powering other systems, such as avionic systems. However, certain resistive films are optimally powered by AC electrical power. Heretofore, this AC electrical power was supplied by an inverter, which inverted the DC electrical power into AC electrical power having a sinusoidal waveform.
A drawback of utilizing an inverter to invert DC electrical power into AC electrical power having a sinusoidal waveform is that the inverter must be configured to perform this function. In order to output a sinusoidal AC waveform, however, the inverter needs components, such as filter capacitors and/or filter inductors, which add weight and cost to the inverter.
What is, therefore, needed, and not disclosed in the prior art, is an aircraft windshield defogging/deicing system that overcomes the above drawbacks and others. Still other drawbacks that the present invention overcomes will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art upon reading and understanding the following detailed description.